


Saturated

by womeninthesequel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Colors, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Harry Potter Next Generation, Mutual Pining, Romance, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, Tedoire, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womeninthesequel/pseuds/womeninthesequel
Summary: When Victoire is born, she can see color.





	Saturated

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my darling Keep, who was willing to read this in multiple stages. Love, as always, for being the writing Teddy to my Victoire.
> 
> Additional thanks to @gryffindormischief who wrote a beautiful Hinny fic that got me thinking about these two and this soulmate AU.

When Victoire is born, she can see color.

She doesn’t know what a world in black and white looks like, not really.

The things other children talk about don’t line up with what she can see. Even though she’s young, she knows that this is something special. People talk about the realization of color like one day the world was a certain way, and the next day it was something else completely.

After it rains, the puddles don’t look like slightly differing shades of the same. The hues whirl and twist around each other, creating colorations that don’t look boring or plain. When Maman reads her a story about two lovers seeing color for the first time when they meet, Victoire can’t imagine the world as anything other than the way the matched partners describe it.

They say that when you see your soulmate for the first time, the world practically explodes. The shadows and shades of life turn into tints and rainbows.

Is there a way to know what color looks like, if the world has never been without it? If this is greyscale, Victoire wonders, what could color really look like? If this is what everyone else sees, how does anyone know when they’ve actually seen color?

Why does everyone act like nothing is ever the same once they see their person and find color?

\--

When she’s seven, Victoire finds the most fascinating book in the world in Aunt Hermione’s library. This one isn’t a fairy tale, mystery, or any type of story book.

It’s just rows and rows of boxes, each one a different hue. The book covers a whole spectrum, with a little notation for the name of each color under the box. Each shade looks similar next to its neighbors, but by the end of the page, it’s completely new.

She looks at the book for hours.

Now, she has words for the things she sees. The grass is _shamrock,_ her father’s hair is _auburn_ , her mother’s eyes are _cerulean_ , and Teddy can change his hair to anything in the book.

It, whatever it is, feels like a secret, like something she isn’t supposed to be able to do. The adults will brush it off or worry or tell her it’s all in her head. What she thinks she knows makes her feel like a mistake.

The book in her hands might have answers. Aunt Hermione, after all, always said the answers to life’s biggest questions were between the covers of a book.

She isn’t ready to tell anyone.

Rather than explaining herself, Victoire thanks her aunt and asks her uncle if she can keep it. Uncle Ron was always good about not asking too many questions. He just taps her nose and lets her take it.

Victoire clutches the book to her chest and keeps it under her pillow. When she can’t sleep in the middle of the night, she learns another ten color names.

\--

When she’s nine, she caves and decides to ask her mother.

Maybe it’s not what she thinks. Maman will have an explanation where Victoire’s soulmate could still be out there, looking for her to add the rainbow to their life. Maybe color really looks like something else and she’s imagining it all.

Maman doesn’t need to tell her that she sees color. Victoire notices that her mother always dresses in light colors like _lavender, mint green,_ and _baby blue,_ while others wear _c_ _harcoal_ and _grey_.

She notices the other part of seeing colors in her family members. Most of the adults in her family have their own palettes, even though so much of the world is made for people who haven’t found colors yet.

It’s the way her mother and father can talk about anything like it’s the easiest thing in the world. The way Uncle Harry looks at Aunt Ginny when he doesn’t think her other uncles are looking. How Teddy’s gran pauses when she brushes back his hair and sighs, like she’s seeing something that she misses.

If she could really see color, wouldn’t things be like that for her too? Shouldn’t she know who made something happen to her before she knew what it felt like to miss it? Why isn’t life easier because there is someone who belongs at her side?

This is the one thing she can’t talk about with Teddy, so she hopes the question won’t be enough to raise her mother’s suspicion. It’s normal for children to ask about things they don’t understand. Finding colors is just one of parts of life that is talked about with inevitability but cloaked in mystery.

“Maman,” Victoire asks as she draws a picture, “what does it look like when you can see color?”

Her mother talks about the sky and the ocean. She talks about how different France looked when she went home after meeting Victoire’s father for the first time. She talks about the way shades melt into each other and how it can hurt when colors are too bright. She goes on about how simple things like light can be made up of thousands of different colors and make everything sparkle.

Sitting at the kitchen table with the wind from the sea coming in through the window, Victoire nods like it’s all new information. She oohs and aahs at the right moments. She doesn’t comment on the way the sun touches her mother’s cheeks and hair.

Meanwhile, her heart is sinking in her chest because it all sounds too familiar.

Maybe she’s broken. Maybe she’s destined to spend her whole life chasing something she can’t have. Maybe she’ll never know why she can see what’s supposed to be hidden until another person changes everything.

Once her mother finishes talking and asks if she understands, Victoire nods. She looks down at the paper and intentionally mixes together two crayons that don’t go together so no one will suspect.

\--

When she’s eleven, Victoire goes to Hogwarts, just like the rest of her family has and the younger ones will one day.

The Great Hall is full of bursts of color. The ceiling is _magenta, mulberry,_ and _sapphire_ as it displays the night sky. Candles are flashes of _sunshine_ when they reflect on the shining tabletops. There’s _scarlet_ from the table that housed most of her family. On the other side, students proudly wear _emerald_ underneath their banner.

Finally, she’s here, the place that occupied her dreams and stole her best friend away for two years. Before she sits down on the stool at the front of the Hall, Victoire glances over at Teddy. The _yellow_ of the table hits her like a bolt of lightning, and he gives her an encouraging thumbs up from his seat.

The Sorting Hat falls over her eyes and it’s _black_. There’s a voice in her head, mulling over the parts of her that are hidden in her mind. In the moments that she sits there, in front of everyone, Victoire almost asks. If the Hat can see inside everyone’s head, maybe it has some answers.

She doesn’t say anything out loud, but her mind is probably screaming.

_Why can I see them?_

The Hat doesn’t answer the question she won’t voice to anyone else. Instead, the rip at the brim yells its pronouncement, and the Great Hall cheers.

As she moves to her place in the Great Hall, Teddy still smiles at her, even if she’s headed to a different table. For a few hours, as she meets more new people than she can count, it doesn’t matter if she can see something she shouldn’t. Everything is new, so she doesn’t have time to make a catalog of the colors she sees.

At the end of the day, as she’s falling into her new bed in her new dormitory, she reminds herself to write a letter to Maman and Dad about her first day. The tie, she can’t help but notice, is _blue_.

\--

When she’s thirteen, Victoire decides that the secret is too big for just herself.

Victoire looks down at her _light pink_ polish-chipped nails and tries to decide if this is her moment. If she’s ready to let someone else know. She tells Teddy things she doesn’t tell anyone else, so it almost feels like betrayal that she hasn’t told him this.

He doesn’t know that she can watch his hair change thirteen times in a minute - _red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet,_ and, always his favorite, _blue_ \- and never get tired of it. He doesn’t know that she notices how the ends of his hair change when a strong mood hits him. He doesn’t know that life isn’t in greyscale for her. Life, for her, is bright and flashing and sometimes too much.

Teddy is the most colorful thing in the world, and he thinks that she can’t notice.

She says it before she even realizes that she has the courage.

“I think I can see them.”

Teddy tilts his head to the side, curious. “See what, Vicky?”

She makes a face at the nickname and he laughs, pulling her out of her thoughts. He has a habit of doing that, of tugging her out of the thought spiral she’ll stay in for days without a distraction.

She’s so close. It’s the closest she’s ever been to telling anyone.

When she says it, it’s almost a whisper.

“I think I can see colors.”

Teddy doesn’t answer her immediately, so Victoire looks up after a few seconds. Does he think it’s all in her head? Does he think something is wrong with her?

He has an expression on his face that she can’t read. Her heart stutters, hoping that she hasn’t made a giant mistake. His eyes are unreadable but they have changed in a way she could only notice if she could see color.

And she can.

There’s _pink_ on the edges, bleeding into the usual _brown_. She wonders what he looks like to everyone else, who can only see shades of grey. Without realizing it, she’s holding her breath to wait for his answer.

“Vic, I have a secret.”

She swallows and nods, telling him to go on. Thankfully, after a lifetime of friendship, they don’t always need words to communicate. She can feel her heart in her throat, waiting for him to doubt her or reveal that she is really broken somehow or, just maybe, on a slim chance, know the answer.

“I think I can see them too.”

\--

When she’s fourteen, Victoire wonders if the answer is too easy.

She can’t help but notice how her heart beats faster when Teddy puts an arm over her shoulder. He’s been doing it since they were little enough not to remember how the routine began. Before, she looped an arm around his waist or pushed him away. Now, she feels her skin heat up where his fingers have been.

She can’t help but notice that the world is absolutely saturated whenever he’s in her field of vision. Everything contrasts and the tones are brighter, like someone turned up a dial that responds directly to his vicinity.

Maybe she isn’t broken, after all.

After they admitted that they could both see color, that alone felt like enough. They both didn’t remember a world without color and still didn’t have all of the answers. Someone else knew without knowing what it meant. Someone else carried the same secret.

When it first occurs to her that he could be the answer, it suddenly becomes more difficult to breathe around him. She must have seen someone, she decides, before becoming old enough to remember what things looked like without color. That’s a logical explanation.

What if that someone is Teddy?

She’s too scared to say anything. They’ve been best friends for as long as she can remember. Any time spent with him is better than time spent with anyone else. She can’t imagine ever getting tired of his company. He’s easy to talk to, but any other words about colors get caught in her throat before she can actually say anything to him.

Those are all parts of the reason she thinks she might be right.

But then, she’s heard about one-sided (or platonic, if someone is trying to be nice) soulmates. The kind where one person sees colors from another, but the colors for them appear for someone else.

What if she’s right about her colors, but he knows that it can’t be her that caused his? That possibility is worse than not knowing.

If she doesn’t say anything, they can stay the way they are. Victoire won’t ruin things with talk of soulmates and colors and forever. Part of her wonders if it’s all real, anyway. Is seeing color just a coincidence that makes you dedicate time to that person? Could anyone be a soulmate, if colors didn’t get in the way? There are stories all the time about people who never see color but are perfectly happy with someone they choose.

Victoire loves him enough to hope that he’s happy, though, so she doesn’t want to do anything that could break them apart.

She can laugh too hard at his jokes. He can change his hair because she asks. She can try to count the number of hues in his eyes. When she’s feeling confident, she can challenge him to a pick-up Quidditch game that brings out their most competitive sides. Teddy can hold hands with other people and take them to Hogsmeade. They can talk about crushes and first kisses and bad dates. They’re best friends, and it’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

Her heart can beat too fast and too loud, and everything will be fine. It’s better to be this important part of his life than nothing, which might happen if colors sharpen around someone else for him.

Despite trying to look away, Victoire can’t help but notice that his cheeks are _blush_ when the Hufflepuff he likes so much leans up to kiss him in the middle of dinner.

\--

When she’s fifteen, Victoire has a little too much to drink.

In the midst of a Quidditch victory celebration, she feels light and giggly. The whole team is still on a high from the score. She happily dances with the keeper and almost chokes on her _amber_ butterbeer when someone does a spot-on impression of the Slytherin beaters. The room is decked in _navy_ and _bronze_ to proclaim their triumph.

When Teddy comes into the room, stubbornly sporting _canary_ hair, all of the colors feel a thousand times brighter and her smile practically hurts her cheeks. She bounds over to greet him, leaving her team in the middle of a conversation.

“You have to dance with me, Teddy bear,” she says, pulling him close with arms around his shoulders. His eyes are _chocolate_ , and she could look at them forever. She isn’t sure if he can tell how many drinks she has had, but she doesn’t care.

To tug her a bit closer, he puts his arms around her waist, so they’re nearly touching. “Sure you aren’t upsetting all of your esteemed admirers?” he teases.

Victoire shakes her head, not caring what anyone else thinks about her. “I always have time for you.” That’s the truth, no matter what. It comes easily because she’s said it a million times.

Teddy laughs but doesn’t object to her swaying. “Anything for you, Vicky,” he says with a grin as his eyes shift slowly to familiar _pink_. That has to be her favorite color in the world. He spins her too fast when the music picks up, but she can’t do anything but giggle and cling to him when she gets dizzy.

A few songs pass, but she doesn’t want to let him go.

“Teddy,” she says softly, “I have a secret.”

She feels a little daring.

Her best friend tilts his head to the side, the way he always does, in a way that tells her to go on. Her pulse hammers. The colors almost hurt her eyes with their intensity. She tightens her grip on his shoulders to keep herself from losing her nerve.

“I think you make me see color.”

The words are alcohol-fueled and possibly a little slurred, but they’re honest. Her heart is on her sleeve, _crimson_ and aching. The secret feels like it’s going to strangle her if she doesn’t say something.

Maybe it’s only a millisecond, but anything could happen. He could laugh at her. He could pretend not to hear. He could twist it into a joke. He could shake his head, tell her she’s wrong, and make sure they forget about this conversation in the morning.

But he doesn’t.

Before she can decide what expression he’s wearing, before she can figure out exactly what color his eyes are, Teddy leans down and kisses her.

Victoire thought she knew what colors were.

The explosion behind her eyelids is like the dramatic retellings of color discovery that she heard over the kitchen table for years. It’s something new from anything else that ever happened to her. Suddenly, the world does feel distinctly different.

Victoire doesn’t have names for the colors she’s seeing now, even though she’s spent countless hours studying the book from her aunt’s library.

When he pulls away, it feels like a lifetime and a second at the same time. Something in the axis of the world changed, so before feels like an ancient memory. Even though she’s traveled so far, it was much too short and she could spend hours, days, weeks, and years feeling like that.

Victoire wants to kiss him again, wants to see the colors she can’t describe, but she settles for leaning her forehead against his so he can say something. His eyes are _pink, pink, pink_ , and it’s all that she can see.

“It’s always been you,” he whispers.

She laughs in relief because now the world is _gold_ and _silver_ and, most of all, the shade of _pink_ that surfaces in his eyes whenever she’s close to him.

Without hesitation, Victoire moves closer and kisses him again. She’ll happily spend the rest of her life trying to find names for the colorful fireworks he makes her see.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at women-inthe-sequel!


End file.
